


long look of hungry

by Catherines_Collections



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: & learns how to stop it from happening again, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Devotion, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, masaomi’s seen it all burn down once
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-05-15 15:10:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19298260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catherines_Collections/pseuds/Catherines_Collections
Summary: If Mikado saidbark,Masaomi would. If he saidjump,Masaomi would move before the word ended.He doesn’t deluded himself into thinking his body, in any time, wouldn’t follow Mikado wherever he asked it to.





	long look of hungry

**Author's Note:**

> but here I blur   
>  into you
> 
>  
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>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>    
>  
> 
> \- Margaret Atwood.
> 
>  
> 
> Alternatively— in which the Yellow Scarves lose a leader where the Dollars gain a dog.

  
  
  
  
1.

   


When Masaomi wakes up, his body doesn’t ache.  
  


His left cheek doesn’t hurt and his arms don’t tremble when he tries to move them.  
  


He opens his eyes to morning light spilling through the window, and for the first time in months he's met with the first apartment he rented in Ikebukuro.  
  


There is no blood dripping into his eyes, no yellow scarf in sight.  
  


It takes him less than a minute to know something is very very wrong.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
2.  
  
  


It’s five minutes to realize that he is not in a hospital and four to feel the absence of Saki beside him. Two to wonder what else is missing.  
  


When he ends up at a mirror, he lifts his bangs and doesn’t find a scar there. He isn’t surprised, not at this point, and that almost makes it worse, the way the thing crushing his lungs sours when he laughs.  
  


He glances at the calendar taped to the apartment he gave up nearly a year ago and stares too long to properly flinch when it reads two years back, the painted numbers staring like a challenge against white.  
  


But if it is one, he doesn’t take it. Or, not yet, not when he still doesn’t know what it is.  
  


An hour ago, he closed his eyes to a back alley bullet piercing through his skull and opened them here.  
  


He doesn’t have an answer for it the same way he decides not to go looking for one.  
  


The familiar sense of suffocation pooling in his chest proves it isn’t a dream. And there’s food in his fridge like he stocked it yesterday instead of two years ago.  
  


Masaomi stands in the apartment he lost a year ago and wonder if there should probably be something burning to it, the air of finality to all the events he is never going to watch happen. All the memories he’ll never experience again. Not here, at least.  
  


The night shirt he hasn’t seen in months covers areas he knows he won’t find pinked lines anymore, and he brushes his bangs back onto his forehead out of habit. He can feel the itch under his skin spread at the thought.  
  


There isn’t a sword in his back, no bullet cutting his chest, no crow bar peeling back layers of scalp.  
  


Ikebukuro rages outside in the gold morning light and Masaomi decides: _okay.  
  
_

He thinks, _I’m going to get this one right._

   


3.

 

He isn’t phased anymore when his hands come away slick, blood beaten red and glowing against his skin. Three years of gang running and two of high stakes vigilance assure that.  
  


He’s even less stunned when, some nights, it’s Mikado’s blood he wakes up drowning in, gray eyes burning to hold the city.  
  


Two weeks before he meets Anri, Masaomi erases any stray traces of Mika Harima and buries the paths leading back to Seiji. He quiets the rumors surrounding Namie Yagiri and tails Haruna Niekawa to a secure enough location he can forward anonymously to Celty.  
  


He addresses the note, cleanly: _there are more monsters here than you think._ And ensures there is no way to track it back.  
  


He sends Raira a detailed list of accusations against Nasujima compiled through the years with locations and names. He doesn’t bother to hide his grin when he hears about Nasujima’s quiet termination two days later.  
  


He doesn’t touch his phone. He doesn’t call Izaya; he doesn’t visit the hospital.  
  


One week before Mikado, Masaomi wipes what he can of the city clean, and leaves empty threads out to hang. Uses dead-end mysteries as lures that double for bait as well as prevention.  
  


Boredom, Masaomi knows now, is not becoming of Ikebokuro’s fate.

   
  


4.

   


When he meets Mikado at the station, Masaomi slips the battery on his phone into the trash.  
  


Mikado walks off the train and, this time, when he turns from the platform, Mikado sees him first and smiles, waving like he isn’t the reason Masaomi has done any of this.  
  


Mikado says his name and Masaomi doesn’t cry, he doesn’t, but he doesn’t stop looking at Mikado either, standing in front of him on the streets of Ikebukuro and smiling, unscarred.  
  


He throws the phone under the tracks.

   
  


5.  


 

Mikado laughs nervously, says, “I’ve never heard of the Dollars before.”  
  


And Masaomi watches Mikado’s eyes light when Celty’s horse echoes around the city and knows better, now, than to stop him.  
  
  
Mikado says, “I’ve heard some rumors say there’s a gang war starting.”  
  


And Masaomi spends a night bashing in Horada’s head until they’re both painted red just to be sure.  
  


Mikado looks at him, the school bell ringing behind them, and lies through his teeth: “You don’t think the Dollars would do anything bad, would you?”  
  


And Masaomi still hasn’t stopped looking for the scars that should be littered across both their backs. The ones in tandem with his, detailing a life he won’t let exist.  
  


He’s maybe too careful when placing an arm around Mikado’s neck, humming quietly at the question in a way he never would have two years ago when Mikado first asked him.  
  
  
There are so many answers he could give him.  
  


He could say, _it never starts out that way_. Or, _there are a lot of good people there._ Or, _the line’s getting thinner.  
  
_

He could say, _you of all people would know, why didn’t you just tell me?_ and tear it all down before it has a chance to begin.  
  


But Masaomi has never been the one good at truths.  
  


He bites his tongue and settles on, “I don’t think they’ve ever meant to,” instead. Gracious in a way only waking up to your best friend’s blood every night can make a person.  
  


Someday, he’ll be able to fill this city with all the lies he’s built it on.  
  


Mikado pouts like he’s waiting for an answer Masaomi won’t give him, and he’s right this time.  
  


Because Masaomi won’t give it to him; he won’t give Mikado the fuel to chase after the Dollars or Izaya or anything else lurking on city’s streets and outside of Masaomi’s predictive grasp.  
  


Mikado laughs when he’s pulled close and Masaomi thinks about burying his nails into his shoulders, weighing him down until he’s glued into caution and not just another thing the city swallows up.  
  


There are always too many bad things in the dark but Masaomi knows their names now.  
  


Masaomi says, “Intention is another battle in Ikebukuro,” and thinks about how he can trace all the blood he’s lost back to Mikado’s smile.

   
  


6.

   


The most twisted thing about it all is how not too much changes.  
  


Masaomi keeps burn lists on the bad nights for each unintentional cruelty resulting from the switch, and this makes the top of three of them. Watching them fade into orange doesn’t make it any better.  
  


Mikado still runs a gang that keeps the city’s knees shaking on the side, and Anri will always have a part of Saika to her, whether any of them like it or not.  
  


Celty is still missing her head and Masaomi checks every path twice so he doesn’t run into the person holding it.  
  


Mikado still smiles at him like he means something and Masaomi still doesn’t ask before he acts, head first.  
  


If Mikado said _bark,_ Masaomi would. If he said _jump_ , Masaomi would move before the word ended.  
  


Masaomi knows he’s just waiting for the _‘if’_ to become a _when_. He doesn’t deluded himself into thinking his body, in any time, wouldn’t follow Mikado wherever he asked it to.

   
  
  


7.

   


It takes two weeks without a phone for Izaya to catch up and only one to adjust his pawn for Masaomi accordingly.  
  


Masaomi had estimated two and a half, but Izaya leans against the alley wall while Mikado’s in meeting, four days early, and Masaomi almost lets himself shake in relief. He tightens his shoulders, broadens his stance, instead.  
  


Izaya reads it as something else.  
  


He thinks distantly, how Izaya has _always_ read it as something else.  
  


Masaomi says, “I thought we ended this already,” and thinks about red spilling onto a knife and dirtied blonde hair.  
  


Izaya smiles, sickly sweet where it doesn’t touch his eyes and says, “Funny. You’re easy to read, you know. Always a little too obvious. It’s written all over your face, pages on full display.”  
  


And it’s fine, in a way, to let him say this, Masaomi thinks. Because Izaya isn’t right about this anymore.  
  


Not when Masaomi has lived it twice now and can read Izaya in ways he doesn’t want him to, doesn’t know he _can.  
  
_

Izaya can’t read a future from him the same way Masaomi’s trying to rewrite it, and this one doesn’t start like this.  
  


He has too much information Izaya will never get to know and plans to make sure too much of it never happens.  
  


He’s seen Anri doused in blood. The mania in Mikado’s eyes when he didn’t think anyone was looking. Shizuo with bullets bleeding out of him and Celty as a monster. Shinra when he couldn’t pieces it all back together again.  
  


Masaomi has seen the result of what tasting misplaced boredom can do when spread, and he’s going to make sure Izaya never gets a chance to pass it on.  
  


So he says, instead, “I’ve always liked being a little too much,” tongue loose, careful and careless like he hasn’t let himself be in a little over a year, and it burns in a way he wouldn’t think it would.  
  


“Doesn’t leave anything wanting.”  
  


And he smiles, because Izaya still doesn’t know his biggest threat is standing right in front of him, wearing the form of underestimation.  
  


Masaomi has scars on his forehead and dead friends he wakes up screaming to. This time, he’s too careful to consider warning Izaya away from his own.  
  


There are a lot of ways they are alike the same way that he doesn’t want to think about it, and Izaya’s knife is nowhere in sight when Masaomi says it, but the city’s breeze is cold enough to cut for both of them.  
  


Masaomi thinks, _double sight, double injury_ and of ricocheted actions.  
  


Izaya pulls a knife; Masaomi get his brains bashed in.  
  


Masaomi faces a bullet; Izaya bleeds.  
  


There’s one path to the end and Izaya’s eyes sharpen when Masaomi grins wider and says, _we’re both riding it, you know.  
  
_

After all, if Ikebokuro’s taught him anything, it’s that obsession runs two ways.  


   
  


8 _._

   


There are always things he wishes he didn’t remember, even if it means he wouldn’t have the chance to reset them.  
  
  
The first few times he wakes up to the echo of a gun cocking, his mouth opens in a silent scream and he comes to with the sheets on the floor.  
  


When he wakes up to red claw marks down his chest, he starts wearing gloves to bed and only tears them off twice after waking to the blind fear of being bound.  
  
  
Masaomi pick up Shizuo’s smoking addiction after the fourth time Anri says something about the dark circles spreading under his eyes.  
  
  
He sleeps better for a week after. Nicotine beats the insomnia from watching your best friends’ corpses smile at you from the dark.  
  


Neither Mikado or Anri say anything about the smoke clinging to his clothes that week, but they both stop looking so worried afterwards.  
  
  
Masaomi doesn’t miss the way Izaya’s eyes flash when he meets him again six days later, Mikado in tow.

  
  


9.  


 

He’s three months in when the city begins to click itself into a new pace.  
  


Namie Yagiri doesn’t pull Mikado into a leadership stunt and Mika’s disappearance doesn’t press Anri into that alley.  
  


He doesn’t hear anymore about Saika, but he watches Celty swarm the streets with Mikado’s awed gaze set before him.  
  


Anri says, “The city seems calmer than I remember it,” and Masaomi doesn’t miss the glint in Mikado’s eyes, gone in the same instant it arrived, all numb violence.  
  


“Nah,” Masaomi says, always _careful careful careful_ these days. “I think- It feels like we’re on the edge of something. Anticipating the weight of the other shoe dropping, you know?”  
  


And he winks at Mikado, shoulders falling slightly when a smile takes his face and wipes a quarter of the numbness away. Anri hums when Masaomi links all their arms together as they cross a crosswalk.  
  


Izaya has different puzzle pieces now, but Masaomi has his own set this time.  
  


The next day, _he_ introduces Mikado to Celty.  


   
  


10.

   


On the good nights, he spends himself planning. Tries to chart out every course he can remember them taking, leading back down to biting bullets and side scars, and gravitates to the opposite.  
  


He thinks about Anri’s laugh and Mikado’s smile and the same shy kid he got himself pushed into an alley for, only a few months after quitting the Yellow Scarves.  
  


He remembers telling Kadota’s gang, _I’m done, for good,_ three days into the reset and still shaking from waking up from a head-shot he closed his eyes to. How they still looked like they didn’t believe him but Kadota nodded, Erica and Walker’s gaze cutting behind him in Saburo’s van.  
  


And on the bad nights, the ones where he can’t feel anything but paranoia worn from these new edges of insomnia, he wonders which will really come first: the sweeping relief, or Mikado, Masaomi, and another gun between them.  
  


   
  


11.  
  
  


Mikado asks, “Masaomi, are you even listening?”  
  
  
And Masaomi isn’t the same kid who could laugh carelessly when Mikado asks, but he does it anyway.  
  


He’s not the same kid as the one he's wearing the body of, two years too young when he pulls Mikado into a playful headlock while Anri sighs, but he’s making his peace with it. Mikado sputters into his jacket when he moves and Masaomi wants to drown into the touch, close and warm.  
  


It’s Mikado turn to laugh when Masaomi pulls back from the headlock, too clumsy to be anything but intentional, and says, gentle, “You can hug me, you know. I won’t break.”  
  
  
And Masaomi can’t seem to rewire his mind enough to keep from thinking, _won’t you, though?_ But he still leans into Mikado’s touch, lets himself have that, at least.  
  


He feels Anri’s smile more than he sees it, but it doesn’t keep him from avoiding her eyes the rest of the walk home.

  
  
  


12.  
  
  


 

It doesn’t take five days after Mikado meets Izaya and two after Celty for Masaomi to realize Mikado can do whatever he likes with him like this.  
  


Mikado can ask whatever he pleases, pull wherever he wants, and Masaomi will let him.  
  


Because Masaomi doesn’t mind it. He’ll never mind it, not here when Mikado’s still in-front of him, smiling like he isn’t the biggest gang runner in the city. Like he couldn’t bring Masaomi to his knees in less than a heartbeat if he wanted to.  
  


If Mikado asked him to kill someone for him, Masaomi would kill three and bring back the bullets. He already has a kill-list stained with Mikado’s name, and he pretends it doesn’t look better in a haze of orange light.  
  
  
Mikado can pull him as hard as he wants and Masaomi won’t let himself break from it.  
  


That he will always have Mikado on his tongue, in his bones so deep he won’t know where to start carving him out, only makes the burn list four times. He stops counting, after that. It seems inconsequential, as natural as breathing once he names it.  
  
  
Mikado walks and Masaomi follows.  
  
  
He almost can’t remember a time where it was ever reversed.

   
  
  


13.  


 

There has always been too much in Mikado’s eyes for Masaomi to read, but he knows better, now, than to ever let them hold anything resembling bored.  
  


Celty says, “I’m looking for my head.”  
  


And Mikado spends a day on the opposite side of the city to Izaya, trying to track it down with her. Masaomi tailing the outskirts for anything out of plan.  
  


After school, Masaomi takes him to _Russia Sushi_ where Izaya moves slick and quiet in and out of alleyways, and Masaomi pulls Mikado back when Shizuo throws a lamp post after him.  
  


Mikado is wide eyed, leaning on Masaomi’s shoulder as Izaya pulls out his knife, smiling. Shizuo’s expression doesn’t crack. Masaomi has seen the scene too many times to count, in both lives.  
  


Mikado says, breathless, “This city is dangerous,” and Masaomi knows he means _amazing, thrilling: contagious.  
  
_

Mikado sucks in a breath when Simon grabs Shizuo by the neck and doesn’t look anything close to bored. Masaomi wants to play the scene over and over.  
  


Mikado says, “I didn’t know the city would be anything like this.” And Masaomi thinks, _liar.  
_  
  
Because bored, in the language of Mikado that Masaomi has learned to read for himself, equates to loss.  
  
  
And this, Masaomi thinks, Mikado’s face lit up with wonder, the streets nearly clean of their blood, is not something he will ever let himself lose again.  
  


   
  


14.

   
  


He thinks he gets it, now, why Mikado was trying to hide all those years ago.  
  
  
Masaomi slices the Blue Squares through until there’s no yellow left to bleed onto the side-walks, and doesn't think about what it means to become the next nightmare of the city while Anri tampers her death wishes and the Dollars get run behind a screen.  
  


He gets what Mikado thought he was sparing them from, in a way. Shizuo’s screams echoing another corner when Izaya hits his mark; Shinra always lurking too close behind Celty’s shadow.  
  


But Mikado still got it wrong.  
  


Because Masaomi knows what a body can look like when it's torn out of shape, what the lure of a missing head can do. Mikado created the Dollars on a whim but Masaomi climbed the Yellow Scarves.  
  


He has been many things spread across two lives, but he has never been sloppy. Not with this.  
  


Masaomi knows how a bullet tastes, how far a bone can bend until it breaks, and there’s something shining in it. In that he isn't the same person who couldn't save Saki so long ago.  
  


That, when it comes down to it, he already has enough blood on his hands to warrant more.  
  


Mikado could rage a war on the iced over streets of the city and, this time, Masaomi would stay.  
  


In this time, this place, he would stay.  
  


There is only one thing more terrifying he can think of than that.

   
  
  


15.  


   


Mikado says, after Izaya bleeds and Mika surfaces and all the other stray strands Masaomi has sewn together collide: “I have something I think I need to tell you.”  
  


And Masaomi makes his grin soft, heartbeat in his throat and the ghosts of invisible scars burning beneath his bangs when he makes room on the couch for Mikado.  
  


Masaomi says, “I think I’d really like to hear it.”  
  


And Mikado smiles back.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading, I really hope you enjoyed. Comments & kudos are so appreciated & I love them. 
> 
> I own nothing & the title is from Janet Holmes.


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